THE TennisReporters.net NEWSLETTER: SATURDAY, MARCH 12, NO. 119
Life in balance: Safin tries to avoid boredom
in pursuit of greatness
Marat: 'We don't have the regular life of a young person. … We're already grown-ups'

By Matthew Cronin, TennisReporters.net

Cynthia Lum/WireImage.com

Elena Dementieva and Marat Safin participate in the the Pacific Life Open in Indian Wells, Calif.

FROM THE PACIFIC LIFE OPEN AT INDIAN WELLS – In the past six months, Marat Safin has been the only player to prove that's he's a worthy rival to No. 1 Roger Federer. Lleyton Hewitt and Andy Roddick can't claim that, because neither of them haven't beaten the Swiss great during last year-and-a-half.

Safin shut the door on Federer at the Aussie Open and it's clear the imposing Russian has the weapons, variety and smarts to compete with him.

Still, not everyone has him on his or her A-list of players. Yesterday, Andre Agassi was asked to talk about the top four that have emerged, Federer, Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt, and "whatnot."

"The 'whatnot' would be Safin, right?," Agassi said with a smile. "Safin is always good value."

But while Federer has shown himself to be a consistent warrior for the past two years, Safin has been up and down. One week, he's winning his second Slam. A few weeks later, he's losing in the first round of Dubai. Then last weekend, he was a Davis Cup hero once again.

Safin is one of the game's great characters – a zany, fun-loving, emotional man who has a keen intellect and love of off-court life. But if he wants to challenge Federer, he'll have to be super consistent all year long and that means pursuing off-court activities that are a little more mellow than climbing up the rafter and bellowing to club music.

The 24-year-old has said many times in the past that he's not the type of person who can go from his hotel to the tournament to the players lounge and to the plane week-in and week-out. He needs to have at least a few kicks to keep his mind fresh on court.

"That's what I'm doing," he said. "I'm trying to squeeze the maximum of my free time. Whenever I have time free, I try to rest as much as I can because really it takes a lot of energy for us, believe it or not, being on the court, especially in the heat. It's a lot of pressure. You have to be mentally tough. Even maybe sometimes you go for a month-and-a-half outside of home. You don't really see your family. You talk to people; they don't even speak your language.

"For example, in autumn we go to Asia. All the respect to Asian people, I love to spend time there, but for one-month-and-a-half, it's a little bit too rough without going home. That's what I mean, sacrifices, because you cannot go there for a week and say, 'No, I had enough, I have to leave.' No, you're committed to the tournaments. You're committed for what you're doing. It's your job. So you can't. You have to be there. You have to stay for one-month-and-a-half and deal with that. Of course, it's fun when you are winning. But when you are not winning …"

HE was NO. 1 back in 2000 & 2001
At the end of 2000 and the beginning of 2001, Safin was No. 1 for nine weeks, although it wasn't officially recognized by the ATP at the time. More importantly, he was edged at the in 2000 by Guga Kuerten for the year-end No. 1 spot.

But Safin wasn't chasing a red hot and relatively young Federer then. At the time, he took his remarkable victory over Pete Sampras in the US Open final and then nearly killed himself for three more months in the fall. Now, he's not only going to have to grind all year long, but play extremely well, because, although Federer has showed a small amount of vulnerability in 2005, he's still winning tournaments at a remarkable rate.

"You have to be consistent. You have to be really committed to what you're doing," Safin said. "Every day it's work. You have to sacrifice a lot of things, unfortunately, because you can't play tennis and at same time enjoy and everything. But you try. Because if you don't enjoy, you can't play tennis. So you have to find the right balance, find the right people next to you, around you, just be focused, be ready for anything what's going to happen throughout the year and take every match very serious because everybody going to try to beat you. Basically nobody has nothing to lose against you, as well as against Roger, against Hewitt, against Roddick, against the top guys. The guys that are behind us, they going to go for it, because for them it's a great challenge and it's a great opportunity to, get the confidence and basically break through, especially in the big tournaments like Masters Series events, Grand Slams, et cetera."

Safin still appears to somewhat resent the sacrifices he'll have to make, but he's still willing to try. Striking a proper balance between work and play is difficult for anyone in any profession, but especially with someone with as many interests as he has.

Marat: 'We don't have the regular life of a young person. … We're already grown-ups'
"We don't have the regular life of a young person," Safin said. "Basically everybody goes to university, then they have a couple of years to decide what they want to do. They go to the shrink. So basically we're already grown-ups. We have to be really professional. We can't take a week off and go hiking or go fishing. Some people do half a year of traveling around the world. We can't do that. We can't have fun sometimes for like for three months, whatever. We can't because we have to be professional. We can't. We can't. We can't!"

Sometimes, Safin has a ball on court. On Friday night during the ATP All-Star Rally for Relief and tsunami fundraiser, he had the crowd roaring in laughter. When playing two amateurs while holding the hand of his childhood friend, Elena Dementieva, he walked with her behind the scoreboard, stood with her for a minute and then walked back, out, pretending to pull his pants up. The crowd loved it. He's a clown of the cheeriest kind.

Cynthia Lum/WireImage.com

Marat Safin brought home his second Slam trophy at the '05 Australian Open.

He's a nice sibling, too. His sister, Dinara, adores him and frequently goes to him for advice. She's says he's hard on her sometimes, but knows he's always looking out for her.

"Whenever she does well, I'm more than happy," he said. "What the most makes me feel good is that she really likes tennis, she really enjoying it, and she's happy with that. For me as a brother, it doesn't matter if she going to win all the titles in the world, she going to become the best player in the world. I want her to be a happy person.

"Of course, everybody knows life is too short, to waste time on useless things, being unhappy. She shouldn't. She has all the support, my support, the family support, to be happy. And that's why I'm trying to give all the advice in the world in order for her to be happy. I will never criticize her. I will never complain about her. I just want her to be happy and to make right decisions. Of course, if is difficult to explain to the girl that is 18 years old what is right and what is wrong. But at the end eventually she will make her mistakes in order to be able to improve herself as a person."

Of course, Safin is sometimes caught with pants down. More often then not, it's early in a tournament, when he hasn't gotten his head into it yet. He's never done anything of note at the Pacific Life Open, but he'd love to take a crack at defending champion Federer in the semis. But, first things first: that means passing his first-round test against either Jarkko Nieminen or Luis Horna.

"You have to be prepared," he said. "Of course, you're fighting, running, shouting, breaking racquets and everything. You do everything that's possible to win because you didn't fly 12 hours here to lose the first round. You want to do well. You have to be as confident as you can, to be able to pass the first two rounds, to get used to it. Then if you got the right confidence, [fans] can expect for the good result."